A Journey of Hope!

When I started Hope for Women, I always made it clear that it was never about me. I knew from the day that I accepted the Christ in my life that I had a special ministry: outreach. However, I had no clue what God had in mind.

My sister-in-law Terri and I were talking on the phone one evening and, I shared my dream and vision to one day publish a magazine. At that point, I had never shared it with anyone. She told me that I would one day become the Christian version of Oprah! Was that powerful or what? I was amazed that she had that much confidence in her little sister! Family can really boost you up, and she was an encouraging force behind my decision to step out in faith to launch Hope for Women.

She also gave me the contact information of a gentleman named Steven, a journalism instructor who attended the church where she grew up and who had successfully worked with various magazines. I scheduled a meeting with Steven in 2000 to discuss my dream and vision for the magazine.

I remember how nervous I was to meet Steven that evening for dinner to discuss the magazine. During this time, I had extremely low self-esteem, I was trying to find myself again and definitely didn’t think I was qualified to publish a magazine. Steven didn’t say much as I shared my vision for the magazine. But what he told me in the final minutes of our conversation was powerful. Most of the evening, I tried to convince him and myself that I didn’t have any experience or a degree in publishing. He told me that I didn’t need a degree to pursue my dream; I just needed faith in God. WOW! As I think back, I realize that statement has been a rock in some of my most difficult times!

That evening was the last I heard from Steven until the summer of 2005. Soon after the meeting, I told myself that I couldn’t invest my time in a magazine, and I put my dream on the shelf. However, later that year, after the deaths of both of my grandmother and father within 2 months, I realized how short life is. Inspired by the books The Purpose Driven Life and The Dream Giver, I immediately knew God was speaking to me about Hope for Women, and I tried very hard to get out of doing it. Instead, I did an 8-page newsletter to be distributed to 50-100 women. But God was saying, “Bigger!” Finally, as I was speaking to someone about the newsletter, she said, “Why are you wasting your time doing a newsletter when God already told you to do a magazine?” From that point on, I focused on a magazine.

I had no clue what I was doing, and I didn’t know what God was doing in my life. Nevertheless, that day was the start of a new beginning for me. In December 2008, it will 3 years since that day. Since then, I have suffered through many things. I have cried myself to sleep and cried when I woke up. Having nearly lost everything, I have felt like the world was caving in on me on numerous occasions. Someone told me along the way that if the only things I had were faith and hope, then I didn’t have anything. That person was so wrong! Hope is about you and me! This is our journey! If we have faith and hope, we have EVERYTHING!

I was able to reconnect with Steven in the summer of 2005. At our second meeting, we discussed the name for the publication. At that time, I looked inside my heart and spirit and focused on myself as an individual. What in my life could I draw from in order to inspire other women and maybe even men? What did I want readers to know?

Immediately, I knew: I wanted to speak to the woman who was sexually abused by relatives or others. I wanted to speak to that same woman who lived with the silence and suffered low self-esteem, weight gain, and guilt from the traumatic events in her life. I wanted to speak to the friend who supported others through the guilt and shame of an abortion. I wanted to speak to the woman who left one abusive relationship only to jump into another. I wanted to speak to the woman who watched her sister in the Lord lose her battle to cancer. I wanted to speak to the woman who watched her loved one become addicted to drugs and saw the addiction nearly destroy a family.

I looked at Steven and said, “The message I want to share with women is that through all the adversities that they may face in this life…there always remains HOPE for women!”

This is my journey of hope.

Angelia